


no longer hanging on a maybe

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Not Anti-Maria, References To The ThreeSome Scene From S02E06, mentions of a fight, mentions of bigotry, mentions of wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24267961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: alex is never late, until one day he is
Relationships: Angst - Relationship, Forrest Long/Alex Manes, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes (Unrequited), Michael Guerin/Maria Deluca (referenced), [mentions of a fight, jealousy - Relationship, mentions of bigotry - Relationship, mentions of blood - Relationship, mentions of wounds - Relationship, references to the threesome scene from s02e06] [not anti maria]
Comments: 12
Kudos: 77





	no longer hanging on a maybe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [capmanes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capmanes/gifts).



> Prompt: **RNM, Alex & Michael & Forrest, Michael is concerned when Alex doesn't show up for something and finds Forrest doctoring an injured Alex after he got into a fight with Wyatt. They both take care of Alex together. Maybe pay Wyatt a visit afterwards?** Please heed the warnings.
> 
> Title is a translation from a line in _Nunca Te Olvidé_ by Morat — _nuestra historia ya no cuelga de un tal vez_ (our story is no longer hanging on a maybe)
> 
> Beta'ed by the always amazing [el_gilliath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_gilliath). Thanks a lot for your help with this!

Michael looks at the clock for the third time in the past five minutes, only to sigh when he realizes the hands havenʼt even moved from the last time he checked. He tries to busy himself with the calculations and the numbers on the papers in front of him, but finds it difficult to focus when heʼs distracted by the fact that Alex should’ve been here fifteen minutes ago. 

Alex is never late. 

Michael gives up any pretense of working on the equations to bring his console to life after a few more minutes of fruitless staring at the strokes on the paper — the foreign signs that he now understands better thanks to Alex’s research of Caulfieldʼs hard drives — and he straightens up, his muscles protesting from having remained unmoving for so long. He flexes his fingers before he fishes for his phone, buried deep in the pocket of the jean jacket heʼs been wearing lately, the one heʼs thrown carelessly over one of the already full chairs. In his haste he almost trips over himself, and heʼs positive heʼs knocked a stack of papers over, but he doesn’t care. Alex should have been here twenty-seven minutes ago. 

Alex is never late. 

He unlocks the screen and punches some numbers, hitting the speaker mode on while he tries to tidy up some of the wreck heʼs created within the last few moments. The phone rings at the other end, but no one picks up. When the tone dies, Michael tries again. At his third attempt at getting to Alex through the usual means, Michael gives up and throws the phone back into his back pocket this time, running a shaky hand through his curls. 

He wants to believe that everything is fine, that maybe Alex has been caught up with one thing or another at the base, but Michael knows Alex is off duty today and tomorrow. His mind wanders back to different scenarios, each one worse than the rest — Alex fallen down in the shower and not being able to stand up on his own, Alex on the curb beside a wrecked car, Alex tied up and tortured by Jesse Manes. When images of blood and pain fill his brain, Michael snaps out of his fears and braces himself against the table full of research papers and glass vials. Alex has to be fine, heʼs just late. 

But Alex has never been late in his life. 

Michael hesitates for a second, his mind providing him with one solution to soothe his fears. He isn’t proficient in it yet, heʼs just learning from Isobel, and he promised he would never use it without consent — not after what happened with Noah, and definitely not in the aftermath of whatever it was what transpired between Alex, Maria and himself in the trailer so many weeks ago. _But this could be considered an emergency_ , he tells himself as he check the time again. 

Alex is forty-one minutes late. 

Michael balls his hands into fists against the glassy surface of the table. _It’s the only way_ , he convinces himself. Michael closes his eyes, focusing in one happy memory of Alex just the way Isobel has taught him, and he launches into the vast unknown of the human psyche, looking for one figment of Alex’s consciousness. He grasps at straws for a few seconds until he can feel the distinct ache of sore limbs and the gushing sound of a bleeding wound. He panics.

Alex is late because he’s injured.

Michael’s moving way before his brain catches with the motions of his body, already revving the engine of his Chevy and driving like crazy through Roswell until he secures a spot in front of Alex’s house, car askew on the driveway. He jumps out of the cabin and rushes to the door, not bothering to knock. If Alex is bleeding, if Alex is _hurt_ , if he’s been attacked — he’s going to hunt down his attackers and make them pay, one by one, limb by limb, until all that’s left of them is battered flesh and broken souls.

He storms into the house, making his way to the living room without even catching his breath, hand outstretched just in case he needs to protect Alex from any more harm. He has to stop dead in his tracks when he spots two figures — one sitting on the couch, the other hovering, blue streaks catching the rays of the sun filtering through the windows. Michael’s entrance seemingly disturbs them both, considering the two of them flinch.

Alex lets out a groan. “What are you doing here, Guerin?” he demands breathlessly, as though it’s difficult for him to speak. When Michael approaches, he can see blood stains all over Alex’s face, a purpling bruise on his jaw, another one peeking through the open shirt he’s wearing.

“Alien Guy!” Forrest says, and Michael registers his presence for the first time since getting inside Alex’s house — he’s been too busy zeroing in Alex and his injuries to acknowledge that, in fact, the blue streaks belonged to a body and said body was Forrest’s. “How have you got inside?”

Michael hesitates for a second. He’s debating whether or not replying to Forrest when Alex comes to his rescue, words gritted through his teeth along with a pained yelp. “He has a key,” and the lie burns in Michael’s soul but he doesn’t refute it. It’s better this way.

“Guess you were way closer than I anticipated,” Forrest mutters. He doesn’t say anything else, carefully leaning in and wiping some blood off Alex’s cheek. Michael can see a cut in there that’s no longer bleeding, but it doesn’t look pretty.

“What happened?”

“The Captain here,” Forrest explains, pointing at Alex as he continues working on cleaning up his face without touching the bruises blooming here and there. “He thought it would be fun to confront my cousin about his homophobic behavior in the middle of the street.”

“What are you doing here, Guerin?” Alex repeats. This time the words come out less pained, and Michael feels a knot in his chest untangle slowly. 

“We were supposed to meet for—” he begins, side-eyeing Forrest briefly before slipping into another of the million lies he’s told throughout his life. “You were supposed to come meet me at the library to keep researching about my family,” he continues. “That was about an hour ago. And you’re never late.”

“That’s true,” Forrest quips in, dabbing at one particular over Alex’s brow that has Alex squirming underneath his hands. “You big baby,” Forrest admonishes Alex with a soft voice. “Stay still. You wouldn’t be in this predicament if you’d let me handle the situation.”

“I wasn’t about to let Wyatt get away with all the horrible things he was saying,” Alex whispers, staring into Forrest’s eyes with an intensity that has Michael taking a step backward.

He feels like he’s intruding into something so personal, so intimate, that’s not made for his eyes to witness. However, Forrest seems keen on looping him in, because he keeps talking. “Wyatt was saying something horrible, you know how he gets, because he’s bragged about how easy it is to rile you up, Alien Guy,” he tells Michael as though he’s sharing secrets with his best friend. “And Alex here decided that he’d had enough and that it’d be cool for Wyatt to have a taste of his own medicine. Needless to say, my cousin knows how to throw his punches.”

“He fights dirty,” Alex complains. Michael frowns at him — he has yet to see with his own two eyes one fight that Alex doesn’t win, so he can only imagine the state Wyatt Long was left in when Alex finished him off. “But I won.”

“Yeah, you did, and now you have to stay still while I patch you up. No more complaining,” Forrest wiggles a finger into Alex’s general direction before picking up some bandaids from an open first aid kit on the coffee table that Michael is just now noticing. “I told you, if you let him run off with his bigotry, he’d eventually get tired and leave you alone. But you had to go and tell him how much of a jerk he was being.”

“Because he was!”

Forrest chuckles. He rips one bandaid from the stack and applies it tenderly over Alex’s brow, leaning in to drop a kiss on the same spot. Michael has to avert his eyes, for his heart is sinking at the mere sight of Forrest taking care of Alex when it should have been _him_. It should have been Michael fighting Wyatt Long, throwing in some punches, defending the love of his life.

“That doesn’t mean you had to step up while my cousin was trying to get me all worked up with his insults,” Forrest shakes his head as he speaks. “I’m not some damsel in distress that you have to protect, Captain. I can fight my own battles.”

“I know that,” Alex whispers softly. “I just wanted to.”

At that Michael’s head snaps back to face Alex, who’s looking up at Forrest with a heat in his eyes that has always been reserved exclusively to Michael. He feels like he’s going to be sick when Forrest smiles sweetly at Alex, leaning in and dropping another kiss to his forehead before whispering, “Alex, you should rest now. Wyatt has a mean left punch.”

“Stay?” Alex whispers back. Michael hears the uncertainty in his voice, the doubt that creeps up through the words, and he’s positive he needs to get out of Alex’s house before he throws up on his living room carpet.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Forrest promises. “Just let me go make some lunch, okay? You just rest here.”

Michael shakes his head to clear it when Forrest straightens up and looks up at him. “I, uh,” he stammers. “I should get going.”

“Yeah, I think you should,” Forrest agrees, his voice back to its normal chirpiness. “Alex needs to rest, and whatever you two were about to research, I’m pretty sure it can wait for a couple of days.”

“Yeah,” Michael says, feeling every ounce of the idiot Isobel’s always telling him he is. “Take good care of him, Long.”

“I like it better when you don’t call me by my family name,” Forrest points out as he ushers Michael out of the living room, not before Michael can steal a glance at Alex’s prone figure, now lying on the couch with his eyes closed. “In fact, I think even Nazi Guy is better than you using my family name.”

“Well then, Nazi Guy. Take care of him.”

“That’s what I plan to do,” Forrest confesses as they reach the front door. He leans into the wood, opening the door slightly. “For as long as he lets me.”

Something twists in Michael’s soul, something vicious and terrible, expanding a shadow through his entire being, and he has to bite his tongue before he says something he might regret. He’s learning to think before acting, to count to ten before speaking. He takes a calming breath and says, “See you around, Nazi Guy.”

“See you around, Alien Guy.”

He stands on Alex’s porch stupidly for a while after Forrest closes the door, leaving him outside — outside the house, outside of Alex’s life, outside of his own _happiness_ — before he slowly makes his way back to his truck. Michael knows he has no right to ask anything of Alex anymore, not after everything that’s transpired between them, but he allows the jealousy spreading through his being to take over his mind.

And if Wyatt Long happens to trip over his own feet in the middle of Main Street and fall face-first into the curb _repeatedly_ , Michael doesn’t know anything about it. He’s just on his way to the Wild Pony, to see if a few drinks and his girlfriend can lift his spirits the way he knows Alex has always managed.

Because he doesn’t have Alex anymore — he’s _Forrest’s_ now — and he definitely should begin to act like the man Maria deserves, because it’s evident that there’s no turning point now that Alex has evicted Michael from his life. Michael sighs as he parks in front of the bar, steering himself for what’s to come, for how his life will change from now on, now that he doesn’t have the safety net that the knowledge of Alex’s presence provided.

He’s flying solo now, and he’s scared shitless, but he has to keep moving. This is the life he’s chosen, this is the path he’s taken. So he gets out of the car, puts one foot in front of the other, and walks up to the bar entrance while his mind supplies him with flashes of laughter and bursts of light, before he realizes he hasn’t closed his connection with Alex.

Michael endures a wave of warmth and freedom, and what feels like an imprint in his soul — in _Alex’s_ — as he’s sure that Forrest is kissing Alex softly, if whatever he’s feeling is any indication. Out of spite, he tries to send a flare of pain through the connection before it backfires on him and he’s left reeling in the aftermath of his own grief.

He can’t reach Alex, afterwards, as much as he tries. And with a sadness he hadn’t thought he could feel, Michael realizes that Alex has learned to cut him off as well — probably through Isobel — and that he’s all alone in his ache, lonely with his suffering.

He opens the door to the Wild Pony and greets Maria with a half-hearted smile. This is his life now — made of halves, never complete — and he should begin to learn how to navigate through his existence with the choices he’s made.


End file.
